* * *
How many collisions, sun? How many times have you dropped from high focused white heat down through the same cooling arc and fallen into the same valley that you will fall into this evening? And across the world, every moment a sunrise, and a new day beginning.
The sun moves another tenth of a degree toward the horizon, and as I fly, the valley that would have received it becomes a little lake, all golden, a mirror of a golden sky. And then a forest of trees moves in to stand pretender to the final resting place of the sun. If I could stand still in the air, I would be able to believe that the sun truly sinks into that valley, that lake, that forest. But the biplane dispels old illusions as quickly and as firmly as she creates new ones.
One that she is working on now: the engine will run forever. Listen: 1–3–5–2–4, over and again and again and again. If there is no faltering now, there will never be a faltering. I am strong and powerful and I shall spin my bright propeller until the sun itself is weary of rising and of setting.
* * *
The ground now is going dark, and the surface of the land is one smooth pool of shadow. Once again the biplane reminds me that she has no lights for flying or landing. Even the flashlight is out of reach, in the front cockpit.
Fine thing this could be. Spend your time daydreaming and wake to find yourself enveloped in night. Find a place to land, son, or there will be more repairs for you to make. At 1740 revolutions per minute, fifty-two gallons of gasoline will last five hours and six minutes. Which means, at the moment, that there are three hours and twenty-one minutes left for my brave engine. My five-cylindered companion and its faithful flashing blade will cease to turn at just the moment that the sun sets in San Francisco, and that it rises in Jakarta. Then, perhaps, twenty-five minutes of silent gliding and the end of the world. For the sky is the only world, quite literally the only world there is for an airplane and for the man who flies it. The other world with its flowers and its seas and its mountains and deserts is a doorway to dying for the craft and the man of the sky, unless they return very gently, very carefully, seeing where they touch.
It is time to land now, while I still can see. And let us see. Over the side, down through the deep wind, we have a few darkening pastures, a puzzlework forest of black pines, a little town. And look at that, an airport. Beacon going green. going white. going green. and a short double row of white pinpoints in the dark; runway lights. Come along, airplane, let us go down and sleep against the earth tonight.
Tomorrow will be a big day.
5
MORNING, SUN ONCE AGAIN, and a fresh green wind stirring across the wing that shelters me. A cool wind, and so fresh out of the forest that it is pure oxygen blowing. But warm in the sleeping bag and time for another moment of sleep. And I sleep to dream of the first morning that I ever flew in an airplane.
Morning, sun, and a fresh green wind. Softly softly it moves, hushing gently, curving smoothly, easily, about the light-metal body of a little airplane that waits still and quiet on the emerald grass.
I will learn, in time, of relative wind, of the boundary layer and of the thermal thicket at Mach Three. But now I do not know, and the wind is wind only, soft and cool. I wait by the airplane. I wait for a friend to come and teach me to fly.
The distant seashell hush of a small-town morning is in the air, whispering along with the early wind. You have missed much, city dweller, the words trace in smoky thought. Sleep in your concrete shell until the sun is high and forfeit the dawn. Forfeit cool wind and quiet seashell roar, forfeit carpet of tall wet grass and soft silence of the early wind. Forfeit cold airplane waiting and the footstepsound of a man who can teach you to fly.
“Morning.”
“Hi.”
“Get that tiedown over there, will you?” He doesn’t have to speak loudly to be heard. The morning wind is no opponent for the voice of a man.
The tiedown rope is damp and prickly, and when I pull it through the lift strut’s metal ring, the sound of it whirs and echoes in the morning. Symbolic, this. Loosing an airplane from the ground.
“We’ll just take it easy this morning. You can relax and get the feel of the airplane; straight and level, a few turns, look over the area a bit. ”
We are settled in the cockpit, and I learn how to fasten the safety belt over my lap. A bewildering array of dials on the dashboard; the quiet world is shut away outside a metal-doored cabin fitted to a metal-winged, rubber-tired entity with words cast into the design of the rudder pedals. Luscombe, the words say. They are wellworn words and impartial, but flair and excitement were cast into the mold. Luscombe. A kind of airplane. Taste that strange exciting word. Luscombe.
The man beside me has been making little motions among the switches on the bewildering panel. He does not seem to be confused.
“Clear.”
I have no idea what he means. Clear. Why should he say clear?
A knob is pulled, one knob chosen at this moment from many samelooking knobs. And there goes my quiet dawn.
The harsh rasp of metal against metal and gear against gear, the labored grind of a small electric motor turning a great mass of enginemetal and propeller steel. Not the sound of an automobile engine starter. A starter for the engine of an airplane. Then, as if a hidden switch was pressed, the engine is running, shattering stillness with multibursts of gasoline and fire. How can he think in all this noise? How can he know what to do next? The propeller has been a blur for seconds, a disc that shimmers in the early sun. A mystic, flashing disc, rippling early light and bidding us follow. It leads us, rubber wheels rolling, along a wide grass road, in front of other airplanes parked and tied, dead and quiet. The road leads to the end of a wide level fairway.
He holds the brakes and pushes a lever that makes the noise unbearable. Is there something wrong with the airplane? Is this flying? We are strapped into our seats, compressed into this little cabin, assailed by a hundred decibels running. Perhaps I would rather not fly. Luscombe is a strange word and it means small airplane. Small and loud and built of metal. Is this the dream of flight?
The sound dies away for a moment. He leans toward me, and I toward him, to hear his words.
“Looks good. You ready?”
I nod. I am ready. We might as well get it over with. He had said it would be fun, and had said the words with the strange soft tone he used, belying his smile, when he truly meant his words. For that meaning I had come, had left a comfortable bed at five in the morning to tramp through wet grass and cold wind. Let’s get it over with and trouble me no more with your flying.
The lever is again forward, the noise again unbearable, but this time the brakes are loosed, and the little airplane, the Luscombe, surges ahead. It carries us along, down the fairway.
Into the sky.
It really happened. We were rolling, following the magic spinning brightflashing blade, and suddenly we were rolling no more.
A million planes I had seen flying. A million planes, and was unimpressed. Now it was I, and that green dwindling beneath the wheels, that was the ground. Separating me from the green grass and quiet ground? Air. Thin, unseen, blowable, breathable air. Air is nothing. And between us and the ground: a thousand feet of nothing.
The noise? A little hum.
There! The sun! Housetops aglint, and chimney smoke rising!
The metal? Wonderful metal.